It’s a ghost-powered plot. I understand the ghosts are necessary, but I wish the team had had the time/skill to think of something better.

Derek and I definitely get into the bickering, and of all things we could have chosen, it was how similar Troi’s psychological techniques are to those of the real world. Honestly, considering how little faith I have in both of those things, I was on the wrong side of this one. That said, I think he’s setting a high bar for the principals’ realistic emotional reaction to these events. Is he wrong or is this a case where Star Trek has abbreviated the language of television too far?

Also , those ghosts are so stupid.

The Beige and The Bold is available on iTunes, Stitcher, and other podcasting platforms. It updates Monday mornings at 2:00 AM ET / 1:00 CT.

I think it’s silly that we assume a whole culture is at risk from a single incident. You figure that’d be sucked up by cultural background radiation of bullshit stories.

I didn’t express it well in the episode, but after Ira Graves, I don’t think people in Star Trek are mortal any longer. I guess they have to be uploaded to positronic brains, but…maybe that’s what Maddox was working on. It might explain his urgency. Maddox wanted to use Graves’ work to save a dying family member?

I think we watched this one about a month after The Orville season finale, so that’ll be the last Orville reference for a while.

The Beige and The Bold is available on iTunes, Stitcher, and other podcasting platforms. It updates Monday mornings at 2:00 AM ET / 1:00 CT.

Morning Perfect Base is coming back next week (this week was a bit crazy).

It will replace Minecraft News for Adults. Monday through Thursday will be news. Generally, four positive, neutrally-toned science-y, law-ey, current events news articles in ten-minute videos (I’ll probably have to shift back to fifteen). There will be occasional, more downbeat, social/political content (still working through ratios).

Fridays will be the Disco Comics and personal stuff I usually reserve for the end of MCNFA. Weekly playlists will go up Saturday mornings.

A shift from the scripted (overscripted?) MCNFA to the more improvised MPB means I’m gonna shift more to proper writing. It also means I’ll be covering things in a bit less depth. Always interested to hear requests to delve more deeply into something or to cover a popular news article.

I’m still working on it. It’s taking a while to really quantify what went wrong with the Combat of the playtest. Mostly because that rolls into the larger problems and that naturally leads me into pitching solutions.

My deal is that even if solutions make more complexity, I’ll walk down that garden path a bit and pare it back a bit later. I mean, “wherefore equipment?” “seven stages of combat and only one card type affects each one” “dice for village actions” “theytriarch cards and you” “monsters should kill everyone because A) Monsters & B) It’s Written On The Box” “were coins that bad?” “If that’s a whole village, shouldn’t it have at least one consequential gameplay mechanic?”

It’s a process and I haven’t sat down and dedicated time to typing it all out.

We like this. It’s a good one. The sidelining of Troi is at least an acknowledgement of how useful she could–hypothetically be. As depressing as it is, it’s something. It’s also notable for using Worf a little more than we’ve come to expect.

I do kinda want, “When you least expect it, the Breen will be important,” on a t-shirt.

The Beige and The Bold is available on iTunes, Stitcher, and other podcasting platforms. It updates Monday mornings at 2:00 AM ET / 1:00 CT.